Since the advent of the nuclear age, mankind has lived with the threat of a nuclear first strike. As an answer to this threat defensive systems have been developed to counter a first strike by detonating incoming warheads before they reach their targets. The current and costly research into the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) is evidence of the continued attempt to advance this answer. Although there are many supporters of such an approach, it is feared by many that the ultimate result of a completely working SDI system would be to provide the party owning it too much security and thereby give them incentive to launch a first strike. Only if the two adversaries had completely functioning SDI systems would such a problem be alleviated. However, the possibility of two adversaries expanding their battlegrounds to outer space, a possibility that the current trend does not make improbable, does not bring much comfort to anyone.
It has become clear that a joint solution, consented to by both the adversaries, may be the only way to alleviate the threat of a nuclear first strike. With advances that have been made in communications, computer control and orbital space technology, it is now within existing technological capabilities to design a mutual system which would highly discourage nuclear war and in particular a first strike. The present invention is directed to such a system.